The My Hero Academia Season 3 release date can’t come any faster after the revelations in the recent Boku no Hero Academia Season 2 episodes . The best news is that the third season has been confirmed to be greenlit for production and the premiere date is in 2018!
In the last season, audiences learned more about how the quirk One For All functions and they got to watch Izuku Midoriya, aka “Deku,” take on the Hero Killer Stain, along with Shoto Todoroki and the revenge-seeking Tenya Iida. Fortunately, those who want to peek further ahead can get spoilers from the Boku no Hero Academia manga.
My Hero Academia Manga Has Enough Content For Boku no Hero Academia Season 3, 4, And Beyond
Manga series writer Kohei Horikoshi is a busy guy. Besides working on the manga and the anime, Horikoshi was also the writer for a My Hero Academia OVA called “ Training Of The Dead .” Back in June, the original video animation shipped with Boku no Hero Academia Volume 14 as part of the limited edition bundle.
As of January 29, 2018, Horikoshi is up to My Hero Academia Chapter 169, but he’s promised fans the manga will be a long-lasting series. In a 2016 interview, Horikoshi revealed that he has mapped out the entire story, but only 20 percent of the plot had been released so far. Since the writer passed the 100-chapter mark last year, this means fans might expect the series to total at least 500 chapters.
The manga will also have multiple sagas which shift the focus of the story. Although the series started as a high school manga, Horikoshi hopes to one day portray the main characters as adult professional heroes living on their own.
The story will eventually enter a new saga, but right now, the manga writer is focused on Deku’s beginnings at UA. Horikoshi said he chose to start the story in a school setting because he loves stories where audiences learn “how an individual hero came to be before they become real heroes themselves, which is why I pick a high school setting, a place inspiring heroes can learn. But it does become a problem when trying to branch out the multitude of storylines.”
Seeing Deku as an adult could be amazing for fans, but the immediate concern is whether there’s enough source material for the anime to continue releasing on an annual basis. Except for the occasional hiatus, Weekly Shonen Jump publishes the manga chapters on a weekly basis and a new volume is released in tank?bon format every two to four months.
The pacing of the first season almost matched up evenly with the manga at first, with one anime episode covering the events of roughly 1.5 manga chapters. However, with the story arcs for the League of Villains fight and the UA Sports Festival, the ratio of chapters to episodes changed to two-to-one. The anime’s story pacing remained the same for the second half of My Hero Academia Season 2, which ended with the Field Training and End of Term Test story arcs since they are 25 chapters combined.
That also means My Hero Academia Season 3 has 75 chapters worth of content to draw upon. The manga’s Internship story arc finished with Chapter 162, and numbers 47 chapters, so that story arc will probably be the focus of My Hero Academia Season 4. That leaves 45 chapters, or three story arcs, for the plot of Boku no Hero Academia Season 3. Assuming Horikoshi is able to keep up with his work schedule, it seems likely that fans can look forward to new seasons for years to come.
Boku no Hero Academia Season 3 Release Date
The My Hero Academia Season 3 release date has been confirmed to be on April 7, 2018. Bones ended the last MHA season similar to the last Attack On Titan season by giving anime audiences a hint about MHA Season 3 by confirming it with an end card that did not provide an exact date, but the studio announced that Bones Studio C was already working on making MHA Season 3 . Fans would probably love for the next season to come out even earlier, but such a rapid-fire release schedule would risk the anime catching up with the manga.
My Hero Academia Season 3 Key Visual. Airs 2018. pic.twitter.com/Gm30JZKovQ
— YonkouProductions (@YonkouProd) November 22, 2017
It also seems reasonable to predict that the number of episodes for My Hero Academia Season 3 should be 25 episodes once again. Both the School Trip and Hideout Raid story arcs number 14 chapters, or 28 chapters combined. Assuming the two-to-one ratio, that’s enough source material for 13 episodes. The Hero License Exam story arc is a little trickier since it numbers 17 chapters, but if Horikoshi writes more anime original content, the story should fit neatly into 12 episodes.
Funimation has announced that they plan on streaming the third season but only listed 2018 as a general time frame for release. Manga readers will be happy because the Viz Media, the publisher of the English translation, is promising to catch up with the Japanese version.
My Hero Academia Speed-Up! Starting next Spring we’ll publish a new volume every other month until we’re caught up to the Japanese releases. pic.twitter.com/QNBbwNIcWj
— VIZ Media @ NYCC (@VIZMedia) October 5, 2017
My Hero Academia Season 3 Spoilers
The second season ended with Class 1-A facing off against their teachers at UA and the next segment of the story will begin with a summer break. Deku and the rest of Class 1-A and Class 1-B are going on a school trip to a forest training camp for heroes.
The newest addition to the cast is a four-hero team called The Pussycats. Named Mandalay, Pixie-bob, Ragdoll, and Tiger, these four heroes specialize in mountain rescue operations. These four heroes are responsible for overseeing the UA students, ensuring they don’t misuse their quirks for mischief. But first, they cause a bit of chaos of their own by creating a landslide that sends Class 1-A plummeting into the Forest of Magic Beasts. Using their quirks, the classmates fight off beasts and traverse the mountain to the training camp.
The training camp is focused on helping the young heroes develop their abilities by pushing quirks to the limit. As expected of any anime, the school trip includes a hot springs bath and certain males can’t help but be tempted by the wooden wall dividing the girls and boys. Besides the anime tropes, audiences are introduced to a youth named Kouta who seems to harbor resentment toward heroes. It turns out the boy has a tragic backstory that has caused him to hate both heroes and villains. Feeling sympathetic, Deku tries to befriend the boy but to no avail.
Summer break fun turns into mayhem when the League of Villains invades the training camp with an elite squad called the Vanguard Action Squad. A villain named Spinner has a sword that’s composed of a cluster of bladed weapons. Spinner leads the attack on the camp with the Pussycats fighting back. Class 1-A and Class 1-B are forced to take a stand together against the villains that are targeting UA students.
Meanwhile, Deku is trying to protect the boy Kouta against a villain named Muscular. The boy is shocked when he recognizes the villain as the person whose actions caused him to start hating heroes and villains. The fight between Deku and Muscular pushes the young hero to max out One For All, using 100 percent to blast the villain. Even that sheer power is not enough and Deku is forced to push himself beyond his limits, risking his life to save a boy who rejects his beliefs as a hero.
The battles go back and forth, involving many characters, but in the end, the Vanguard Action Squad disappears after having met their goal. The elite villains manage to injure many students, but their main mission was to capture Deku’s frenemy, Katsuki Bakugo. The angry hero-in-training refused to be protected by his fellow students and a magician villain known as Mr. Compress kidnaps Katsuki by turning him into a marble.
The fact that UA’s teachers could not prevent the kidnapping causes protests at the school, and the faculty are worried they might be shut down. Worse, everyone realizes there must be a traitor within UA since only the teachers and the Pussycats knew the location of the training camp. Everyone fears that Katsuki may be swayed to become a villain since Mr. Compress claimed their goal was to provide free will to the students. The villain insists the students are having values and perspectives forced on them by the design of the UA hero society.
All of this action is a mere setup for the confrontation between All Might and his arch-nemesis, All For One, the super villain who managed to brutally wound All Might five years ago. Just like how All Might passed his powers to Izuku Midoriya, All For One is grooming Tomura as his successor and desires to beat All Might by being the better teacher. The real fight is about producing the next generation of heroes and villains since All Might can’t be the world’s symbol of peace forever. The real fight is about society’s trust in heroes.
For his part, the villain apprentice Tomura is trying to convince Katsuki to become his ally. The League of Villains’ leader believes society is discriminating against them, pointing out how heroes only do their jobs for monetary compensation instead of selflessness. At this point, Katsuki must make a decision by declaring where he stands.
A large pro hero team consisting of All Might, Endeavor, Best Jeanist, Edgeshot, Kamui Wood, Mount Lady, Tiger, and Gran Torino raid the League of Villains hideout and the battle is so devastating that parts of the city are leveled. Amidst the destruction, there are revelations about All For One and a great secret about All Might is revealed to the entire world. Fans will also learn the identity of All Might’s predecessor and how that person’s actions impacted the world of both heroes and villains. Needless to say, My Hero Academia Season 3 will be exciting, so let’s hope Funimation’s third season of Boku no Hero Academia comes out quickly in 2018.
[Update: January 30, 2017] Added official confirmation of the My Hero Academia Season 3 release date. Updated description of manga chapters with recent info.